New player, input on hybrid classes
Ele’s can be some of the hardest people to kill based on builds. Of course, you will sacrifice dps and some other stats to gain sustain. Its hard to equate these toons to WoW because there is no trinity. The ranger’s druid spec allows for the closest thing to a healer.
A mesmer would be a good cross between melee and ranged casting, also a necro can go hybrid and they have some serious sustain.
You get a few character slots, and I will tell this to everyone looking for advise on what toon to play. Try a few if you don’t like the play style or class mechanics delete it and play something else.
Guardians in this game play closer to Paladins than Clerics. There’s no Divinations or Enchantments. For the most part the “spells” you have as a Guard follow Evocation in the form of radiant and fire energies, and you have Conjuration in the form of Spirit Weapon summons; there’s nothing in game that mimics the Cure/Inflict X Wounds spells.
Their buffing also is a little odd is the form of “Inspiration” skills called Shouts, and they can etch symbols/consecrations on the ground to distribute buffs.
In theme with a Paladin, they’re okay by themselves but are much better when surrounded by allies. In other words they’re a lot better at buffing/protecting others rather than just worrying about self-sustain.
Elementalists resemble Avatars (from The Last Airbender Series) since their attacks resolve around the 4 core elements. DnD-wise they resemble Sorcerers in that their Evocation spells are focused towards straight-up blasting your opponents with magic as well as Conjuration spells summoning large scale AoE’s as well as Elemental allies. Their Melee weapon skills feel like just Energy enchantment spells.
Elementalists offer more versatility though when compared to Guards depending on what Element they focus on. E.G. Focusing on Fire and Air are more damage and control oriented vs an Earth and Water focused Ele is more resilient as well as being able to shrug off debuffs and heal/recover from large amounts of damage. At the base levels Ele’s are great at filling multiple roles, but they excel based on what you build them towards though they can be stretched too thin if you try to excel at multiple roles. E.G. A “Fire Ele” can switch to Water to cast a spell or two to heal himself and remove conditions vs a “Water Ele” would have completed that task by attuning to water alone without having to use any weapon skills.
Between the two I would recommend Ele if you’re the type of person that likes to be able to fill various roles and be versatile. Guardian is a great class, but they’re most locked into their roles since they require more investment into the role they want to fill and can’t hybrid as well. That, and Guardians will always have a hint of defensive role regardless of how you build them.
There are no tanks and healers in this game, not in the way you are used too anyway. All classes are able to provide for them self, and it is up to you to take care of your health rather then depending on someone else.
There are classes that can provide support heal more then other classes can. Elementalists are one of them and Druids (ranger) another, but also guardians can provide support heal. But the thing is, you can not pick elementalist and decide that you are now a healer, move in to a dungeon and stay in water atunament all dungeon through. You will most probably get kicked off very fast, because 1, there is no use of healers in the dungeons 2, a elementalist camping in wateratunament is rather worthless.
Playing ele is hard, or i should say, playing ele in a good way is really hard. You have to rotate your atunament after whats needed, and keep 20 cooldowns in your head, make sure to understand and how to combine your skills and how to blast and so on. If you can, then ele is great to play and very rewarding.
I been healer in another game, and i play ele as main in this game and i love it. But there are also other classes that i really enjoy like necro (and you don’t have to use pets, most good builds do not involve loads of pets) or messmer which both are as good but different. Messmers can bring support to the table as well but not in a healing kind of way. They have other skills that really is great support skills.
Necros are not really a support class at all. They are the only class in game who do not share much with others. But this do not mean it is a bad class, it is a freaking awsome class as well, with good damage, good cc, and can be played in many different ways. It have a high hp pool and also a extra hp pool for death/reaper shroud.
Just try the classes you think about. At very low levels you wont see them shine, but you get a idea how they work.
I recommend Guardian as first class. You wont die much at all and your dps in general PvE is still good. And they have great group support if you want to go WvW, PvP at max level. They also got really good elite spec.
Or Necro, also really versatile class. Eats enemies like butter, has basically double HP bars, and is very strong in every game mode. You can build it as tank or as power dps or as condi damage.
If you want a “caster type” with all sorts of magic stuff, there are three "scholar’ professions:
- Mesmer, a very niche profession that appeals very strongly to a certain type of player. It takes a fair amount of skill to manage even mediocre play. It’s my favorite because it’s a lot of fun, challenging to do well, and offers some really useful utilities, much appreciated when they are needed.
- Necromancer, which offers your standard Minion Master type builds, but also more interesting options. It can definitely be played in “easy mode”.
- Elementalist, the most “mage like” class in the game. Currently, it is widely considered (and with good reason) to offer the most utility and damage of any profession. It is in high demand for most situations.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
At what level can you say for sure you can get a good feel for the profession ? 20 ? 30 ?
At what level can you say for sure you can get a good feel for the profession ? 20 ? 30 ?
It’s kinda dependent on the class, but I would lean it’s much closer to 80 than you’d want it to be, and that’s mostly because of the traits. Traits do quite a lot to further define your class and you have more traits synergizing with one another the more traits you can simultaneously slot. E.G.
A Mesmer had prepared Mantra of Recovery and casts Power Return….he gets healed for about 2,600 HP.
Throw in a few Traits:
Mesmer prepares Mantra of recovery and immediately heals nearby allies for 2600 upon unlocking Power Return and heals an additional 500-ish HP to his allies because Mantra of Recovery is a Heal skill. He casts Power Return…gets healed for about 2,600HP…gains an increase of 3% for outgoing damage…passively casts Power Cleanse to remove conditions from his team…gains another 3% increase in his outgoing damage…
Or…
Mesmer casts Signet of the Ether…recovers ~5500 HP and refreshes the cooldown on all phantasmal skills
Add traits
Mesmer casts Signet of the Ether…recovers ~5500 HP and refreshes the cooldown on all phantasmal skills…immediately becomes distorted and removes 1 condition from self….nearby allies gain distortion…caster and nearby allies reflect projectile attacks while distorted.
I would throw in examples for the Chronomancer traits for Mesmer but those traits fall under the Elite Specialization and require more than just being level 80 to be able to unlock. Though this is all to say that it’s difficult to judge a class if you’ve only unlocked a portion of its potential. Though within the first few dozen levels you ahev an idea of what the class’s theme is.
At what level can you say for sure you can get a good feel for the profession ? 20 ? 30 ?
You would need at least have access to your core specialization and your utility skills to get any idea of what each profession can do. When you talk about “hybrid” in this game, you should be aware that we also have two “meta”: power vs condition damage. Those two meta make a large difference in the way you pick your stats for gear and how you make use of core specialization.
Revenant isn’t the same Herald and the same is true for Mesmer vs Chronomancer as every Elite specialization change what kind of combination you have between utilities, elite, healing skill and traits from Elite specialization. It is difficult to get an impression for a profession from only trying it on low level with only a few traits unlocked, basic skills and maybe an elite skill which must be unlocked before you can unlock the next elite as those might not be optimal for the environment (content) you are playing. The Build tab in Hero Panel forces you to pick “tracks” for what to spend your HP on, so it is first when you have everything unlocked that your really can start to get to play around with different type of builds.
With HoT I would say there is not close to 80, but after playing at 80 with the extra trait lines. Leveling a 3rd necro for something to do, and deathshroud vs reaper is painful. However, that being said, around 41 you should have elite skill and 2/3 trait lines open. This will give you a rather worthy sample, and idea based on what you have played so far. To be honest, if I had to play my thief or mesmer from level 1 instead of skipping ahead with scrolls and books, neither one would have gotten anywhere. I love both classes, but lower level is just not representative.
You’re probably looking at either elementalist or engineer for your class, because based on your description it seems like you value flexibility about everything else. I doubt you would like guardian much, as they are actually pretty one-dimensional. Afaik every good guardian build is some kind DPS and/or tank with a bit of damage prevention and feel my wrath.
Elementalist obviously fits better thematically since you are actually a mage. They are the highest personal DPS class in the game if you spec for it, but can also bring decent healing with auras and their ridiculous healing slot skill, and can tank if you bring the right gear and traits. They have both ranged (staff) and melee (dagger/x) specs, and can conjure melee/ranged weapons on the spot. Ele is easy to learn but difficult to master, as they are the squishiest class in the game and require good judgement and positioning.
Engineer isn’t a mage, but it plays very similar to your wishlist with high flexibility and the ability to deal good melee and ranged damage on a single build. They have literal toolkits for every situation, which when activated will replace your weapon with a new set of 5 skills (you can also swap between kits and back to your weapon at will, there isn’t a waiting time). You can play hammer scrapper and be a melee bruiser or play condition damage and have a bar of both melee and ranged kits. Engineers have access to almost every combo field, a lot of damage mitigation, and arguably the best group stealth skill there is, and so their utility is unparalleled among the nine classes. Dedicated engineer healer isn’t really a thing, but their best personal healing skill is also good for group healing, and every engi build has 2-3 water fields and a kittenload of blast finishers, so a good engineer will pretty much always be trying to heal his team. It is also the only class which has “meta” builds that do not use its elite specialization, so you don’t have to go through the game waiting for the heart of thorns elite spec to achieve maximum potential. Extremely flexibility does come with a price, however, in that engineer is more difficult to learn and play than probably any other class, and trying to play optimally can be murder on your fingers. Most engineer builds involve 3-4 kits which amounts to having over 30 skills available at once, virtually all of which are at least situationally useful. This might not be a bit deal to you as a wow player, but this is much more than most the other classes in guild wars.
Actually I guess elementalist brings 29 skills at once if you count overloads, and more if you count conjure weapons, but a decent number of those are not useful at all and many have long cast times, so you have more time to think about your next move. Rotations are also simpler because swapping out of an attunement puts it on cooldown, so you will always use all the good lightning skills while in lightning attunement, for example.
Neither ele or engi is really a support class, however. Both can stack might but that is typically now done by revenants and warriors. Neither one brings any significant unique group buff. If you really want access to support skills you should try mesmer. Mesmers are casters and are fairly flexible as well, but the standard alacrity/quickness build is insanely strong, and anyone you play with will likely be upset/disappointed if you aren’t running some variation of support. Also mesmer play heavily features creating illusions, which it didn’t really seem like was a thing you would want, but maybe you’re into that what do I know. Mesmer is another class with an extremely high skill cap, so be aware of that when choosing!
Sorry this got a bit long, good luck choosing though!
You can never feel the class until you are lvl 80. Lower level are not very powerful and lack of pretty much everything to show it’s full potential. How ever you can still try out the skills, the weapons and you will see were your class is moving and see the differences between them.
You can not try out the specialization for each class until you reach lvl 80 and those pretty much change everything to the better.
If you really want to try them all out you can join pvp and you will get everything added to your character that a lvl 80 character have. This only works inside of pvp game mode though.
Also someone wrote necros are minion masters, and this is correct they can be that, but most necros do not go with minion master, just putting that out there because i know some players don’t like pet specs and there is no reason to turn down necro because thinking this is the only thing they can be, it is not.
I don’t think you need to level any class to 80 if you just want to “get the feeling” and just want to try them out. 40-50 is pretty much enough. After that the basics of each class don’t actually change anymore. Yeah they get new traits and additions but if you hate playing the class at level 50, you will still hate it at level 80 too so there is not much point leveling anymore.